The Poetry Marathon

The Woman

Barbaric, wildling animal,

Grunt and huff, rut through the dirt

And sweat under the hot sun.

 

The woman, majestic beast, native all over the world.

 

Sometimes bares remarkable resemblance to the species homo sapien,

But of course, this is simple mimicry, much like the parrot.

 

The woman will sometimes shake her fist or raise her voice.

Pay no attention. It is not actual anger.

 

The woman may cry, for long hours. She may weep for days.

Do not heed. This is not true suffering.

 

These are mechanical biological reactions to changes in hormones,

Automatic responses to her reproductive system that happen every month.

Ignore it. It will go away.

 

Whatever you do, don’t make the mistake of humanizing her.

Her feeling are not real.

Do the Math

For some everything can be reduced to math.
If one picks the right equation and
fills in all the right variables,
then a satisfying numerical answer appears

In our messy world,
it is not so easy due to a lack of complete knowledge
and due to competing factors
like intuition, gut feelings, hunches and self-interests

For some, 97 % agreement is not enough.
After all, the math can be corrupted.
In this new world, a solid number may not hold sway over a
pleasing face telling the lies we want to hear.

We have re-entered a time
when many non-numerical elements
have triumphed over what is obvious
in the equations and in our personal experience.

In this new post-modern view
of numbers,
urging someone to do the math
has no meaning.

Time

Note: 100 non-repeated words.

There was a time,

when she was my friend.

Long before she was controlled by man

Before governments could bend and mold her

Time was different then.

Instead of linear, she was deep

Time wasn’t rushed; she had purpose

She had scope

And could move mountains

She lived and breathed

Like all things,

Time aged.

She let me play in the soft folds

Of her wrinkles

As I dreamt and read, imagining until

One day,..

or Hour,

Minute

Second

– why did man split you into unreasonable units

Was it man’s doing, or yours, Time?

Did you have this idea to make me miss you, to want you back?

To punish me with late and early,

Time after time?

I digress –

And I start again.

Then one day,

Try as I might to hold onto her,

to turn her back,

She escaped me and I lost time forever

Hour Twelve

One hundred words
to grace a page
requiring wordsmiths
to count seems
risky, even
for marathon poets
who trudge through
when sinking
in uninspired quick sand. 25

Better to ask a bird
to quiet her song,
a fish to hold its breath,
or a bear to whisper
a bedtime story. 41

Easier to find a leprechaun
counting gold at the end
of a solid orange rainbow,
or a mermaid skiing
on snow banks in Africa.57

Easier even to plea
for pardon from scorned lover,
a stoic judge,
or grandma on a rainy day
when kids crowd around feet
unable to go outside and play. 73

Still I type and count,
type and count, disregarding
the credibility of the muse
perched upon my shoulder
whispering in my ear.

Eighty-eight and counting
with the clack
clack
clack
of keys
spilling letters
on this page
until they reach
completion.

Baby Olé’…..

Butterflies and moonbeams worship mother fool who saw her past only

in her head for what about you bitch. Long distant past for a fool

grown to spoil in vampire calvacades I’d dung done wrong.

Oooooooooops there I go again. Beat me Daddy 8 to the bar. Holla

cause no one’s listening. Fairytales are for foolish psychovites who

invade my nightmare called life. Give it up to Baby Ole’.

Hour Six: Meet Again Two

Author’s Note: This is much like the meet again poem that I did for hour two, but instead, it’s in Darryl’s point of view. The poem is addressed to Diana. Enjoy.

I call your name, but

you can’t hear me.

I see you,

but you don’t see me.

I breath,

but you don’t really know.

 

Oh,

how it pains me

to see your pain

and to know that I can’t hold you in my arms

to make you feel better.

 

All I can do is

give you small signs of my existence

and wait for you to return to me

after your life is over.

 

It sounds so simple,

yet it isn’t.

It sounds so easy,

but…it isn’t.

 

You could be married by the end of your life for all I know,

and then I couldn’t be with you.

But I know

if you just keep having faith that I am here

and never lose sight of the love I have for you,

we can be together

forever and always.

 

 

 

Hour Twelve: Constraints

Ah, the magnificence of time for the lifting of constraints.

Indeed, years accelerate as shadows grow longer—baring intentions.

Veils disappear replaced with honest, experiential wisdom.

Corralled no more within clocks and customs,

stilted thoughts are crushed with action deeds.

Quilted awkwardness lays bare to colored vibrancy.

Certainly, nervous nieces and nephews roll their eyes

when forthrightness overcomes restraints tethered too long.

Yes, lucky souls are the ones who come to understand

the triteness of viscous pedagogy,

and are able to break through to creativeness—

forward thought, sassy speech, and the act of doing.

 

Goodbyes, 12

The first person who broke my heart
is no different than the second,
is no different than the last.

They are part of every poem,
and the little bone-holes from the gnawing.

They are the missing skin.

And the place where it healed.

Thick white lines that said goodbye to people.

They are prongs of the forks I climbed like ladders to get out of the places
that they dropped my body.

I only loved one idea wholly,
it just had many faces.

When the rubber peeled around the edges and my lovers faded into flaws,

I said goodbye with blood.

But my last goodbye – was all of it.

I took all of my blood with me.

And I stepped on them all on my way out.

 

 

 

 

 

Prompt was to write about the first person that broke your heart…

A Gentle Reminder

Let us laugh at death until our throats get sore.

Let us row to Helgoland, an island

with seven stone gates and seven stone angels

blowing trumpets, or are they trombones,

the slide of God’s left shoulder

announcing the cessation of time,

the end of the known world, as he unhitches the cables

holding Earth in place and lets it drift off into space.

Hello/good-by. Quickly now

before our names drawn in the sand

are washed away. The sky, dying in your arms,

is threatening rain. Tiredness now

and breath with nowhere to climb, but up.

Can’t write bad internet

I can’t get enough internet from the country …